


Love and Politics

by Wallwalker



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sgrub Session, Doomed Timelines, F/F, Fluff, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Romance, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-07
Updated: 2012-04-07
Packaged: 2017-11-03 05:09:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/377641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wallwalker/pseuds/Wallwalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It could've been a big story - the story of the princess and the commoner! Could've been, if you'd thought about it that way at all. But mostly she was just Aradia, and you like her enough that you don't really care.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Love and Politics

**Author's Note:**

> This may be the cheeriest doomed timeline fic ever, but hey, sometimes you just have to.

Your name is Feferi Peixes, and you're a pretty busy troll these days! You have to be, if you're going to be the Empress someday. 

You might not be able to do anything yet, not for a few more sweeps, but you've got to conduct yourself in the way that'll get you more followers, and that way when you challenge you'll have lots of people to cheer you on and help you when you win. Everything you do now is meant to help you meet that goal. Right now, for instance, you're working on designing a new hive, one kind of based on the same idea as those forests of seaweed with the air bubbles that keep them bouyant. You're still in the early phases, but you're pretty sure that once you figure out how it's supposed to work it'll be really nice, and you'll be able to build some rooms in the deeper parts of the sea and others close to the surface. 

You have a lot of motivations for doing it - you don't want to be the sort of Empress who scares people away, you want them to know that you're approachable, that you want to help them. In the past Empresses lived in the deep ocean, and that's fine and everything, but the landdwellers couldn't really come by and visit, could they? You have more personal reasons too, though. You'd kind of like to have a hive that your friends from the shores can come and visit and actually stay over for a few days! You have the machines that one of your friends made, the ones that let landdwellers breathe underwater for a while, and they're really exciting, but they're not perfect - he gave you all kinds of warnings when he sent them to you, like not letting people hold their breath underwater and not staying down too long or coming up too fast, and really, it's awfully dangerous for a simple visit! 

Still, it's fine for a once-in-a-while thing, and some of them really love the challenge and the danger. Aradia loves it - she comes down and swims with you as often as she can without risking a serious injury, and she always has so much to say about how exciting and awesome it is when she can talk again, and it's pretty infectious - it's like seeing it all over again, in a way, and that's really awesome! Sometimes you forget how pretty it really is, and she's really good at reminding you. It's one of the reasons you like her so much.

Aradia hasn't been coming to see you for long, but so far she's pretty much been the best matesprit you've ever had. She's not afraid of having a little fun, and she doesn't mind _listening_ to you when you talk about feelings and doesn't get mad when you ask her to talk about hers - and boy, you've dealt with enough people who either don't want to talk about them or get mad when you try to get a word in edgewise to be really sick of them. Seriously, you could tell a whale of a horror story about that! But Aradia's not like that at all- the only thing you've ever really seriously fought about was when she tries to do reckless things and scares you, and usually you can work things out so that she'll at least wait for you when she wants to go exploring a shipwreck or undersea cave or whatever, so that if something happens you can help her out. It's not that you don't want her to have fun, but you're really kind of scared of losing her down there! She understands it, though. She understands a lot of things.

Your glubbing auspistice - or at least the really _obnoxious_ one, the one that you still can't believe you pitied for so many sweeps, really, what were you _thinking_ \- likes to call her your trophy. Or your publicity stunt, but he only calls her that when he's sneaking messages to you behind your other auspistice's back, because you both know how mad it would make him. And yes, you're not stupid - of course you've thought about how the other trolls would react to their heir apparent arriving on the scene with a red consort who happened to have the lowest blood on the hemospectrum. You know that it would probably make a lot of waves, and you know what? You don't _care._ Or maybe you do, but you think it's a good thing, because you're going to be doing a lot of things that are going to make waves, and it's probably best that you do the same thing with your personal life. Show them that you really mean it, even when no one was watching! 

Still, it doesn't matter, you know? You don't care what color her blood is, you just like _her._ And she likes you and doesn't care what color your blood is, and that's what counts, right? Not like _him,_ who kept saying how you two were hatched for each other and probably never would've noticed you if you hadn't been the pretty little princess. Really, you're not sure why you were his moirail for so long. You guess you thought you could've changed him if you'd tried hard enough, made him see that the hemospectrum didn't matter as much as he thought it did, but he never changed. Or maybe he has, a little, but not enough to make you happy. You're a lot better off this way! Besides, it's not like _he's_ found a matesprit - he doesn't ever stop pitying himself long enough to pity anyone else, and you're not sure he ever will!

...you guess you're still a tiny little bit jealous of him, though. He has something you don't have too. But then, you're not sure you can hate anyone as much as you hate him - not that you'd want to be his kismesis, because that's way closer than you really want to be to him, and you're pretty sure that if you two tried it you'd just get mad and stick a trident through his stomach and pin him to something, and you're pretty sure he'd end up dead and it'd be all your fault! Which is why you two are glad there's someone who's willing to help out, because you still have to talk to him way too often and he's always insufferable, and he's too important to just kill like that. You figure that Nepeta can have him, and you'll even give her a few pointers - you know plenty of things that stick in his gills, and she's not so mad that she'll really hurt him with those things, and that's good, you guess. You're trying to be happy for her, really! You're just not sure you can be happy for _him._

Maybe once you build your hive you won't tell him where it is. That'll show him. You'll just tell your landdweller friends - including Aradia, of course - and the bunch of you can go there and have fun and talk about how you should change things when you challenge for the throne, and you and Aradia can have a respiteblock all to yourselves at the end of the night and watch the sunrise for a while and then snuggle, and that'll be nice. Just because you're an Empress-to-be doesn't mean you have to work _all_ the time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Halp, how do I fish pun plz


	2. A Day At The Ruins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's probably like any other trip for her, except for the machines.

You're following Aradia down into the depths, and you have to admit you're more than a little nervous. You aren't entirely sure where you're going, but you have a few guesses, since it's Aradia leading you - you've never been this far into this area of the sea before, and Aradia has a sixth sense for dangerous places. Or maybe it's those few voices that she says still whisper to her sometimes, although you're not sure you understand that at all. She says that they sound really resigned now, that they used to sound really insistent but then stopped talking because they seemed to have lost hope, but that now they're talking to her again but it's just not as important as they used to be. She said it stopped about the time she saw that strange white person during that one FLARP campaign, and you're not sure you understand why that would make any difference, but she gets so lost when she talks about it and it just puzzles you to no end. 

It's better when you don't talk about it, really! Before that all happened she was kind of gloomy all the time. Now she's pretty happy, and gets more excited about things, and it's a lot more fun to be around her when she's like this.

Your goggles flash her symbol. You could talk down here just fine, but she can't, not while she's wearing that breathing apparatus in her mouth. But Equius built a chat client into it when you asked him to, so that's okay.

AA: l00k! there it is! just like they said it w0uld be!  
AA: isnt this great?

You peer ahead through the murky darkness, see what looks like dark shadows at the bottom of the sea, tall spires and arches. It's a ruin, all right! You know her way too well. 

CC: T)(at IS really somet)(ing!  
CC: It looks pretty dangerous, t)(ough! We'll need to be extra careful.  
AA: d0nt w0rry! ive d0ne this kind 0f expl0rati0n l0ts 0f times!  
CC: On land, silly! Not down HER---E!  
AA: itll be fine! y0ure here arent y0u?

You find that you don't have much to say to that, and you just smile back at her as reassuringly as you can and swim along with her, wishing that you had as much confidence in yourself as she does.

The ruins are pretty grand, you have to admit! Or maybe Aradia's so excited that everything around her seems really fantastic in response. Either way, there are a lot of tall buildings down here, and it looks like the whole thing was carved out of some kind of undersea stone. Maybe they used to be houses? Maybe the old seadwellers used to live down there, and ran some old empire or whatever it was far under the sea. It sounds like the kind of thing they'd do! But that would make this place really old, sweeps and sweeps and sweeps, long before even your ancestor would've hatched. It's the kind of thing that makes your head swim!

You can't find much down there, though. Whatever was left is probably long gone. Honestly you're amazed there's anything left at all!

After a while your goggles flash a warning light - you always make sure to keep track of time down there, because Aradia's pretty good at it but likes to pretend that she isn't. 

CC: OK, we've got to go back up now!  
CC: Be s)(ore to go up slowly this time, like Equius said!  
CC: I don't want you to end up )(urt again! 38| 

Aradia gives you a look through her own goggles, then shakes her head.

AA: i kn0w! i kn0w 0_0  
AA: theres just s0 much d0wn here and i want t0 expl0re m0re 0f it!  
AA: theres never en0ugh time with these things and i hate it!  
CC: )(ee )(ee, I'm )(appy you're so excited, but it's not my fault, or )(is!  
AA: yes i understand that it is danger0us!  
AA: i guess i sh0uld g0 up and get warmed up anyway  
AA: as much as i wish i c0uld just stay here  
CC: We'll just find a way to make a B--ETTA breathing device someday, okay? 38) Then we can bot)( stay as long as we want!

You can tell she's grinning, even though you can't see her mouth very well; the skin around her eyes has a way of crinkling up when she smiles. 

AA: i am g0ing to h0ld y0u t0 that y0u kn0w!

With that she's ascending, slowly as you hoped, the bubbles from the airtank on her back rising just faster than she is. You swim up above her, in case she decides to get mischievous and try to rise too fast again; she got really sick last time! You're lucky the medical drones were able to help her out.

You get to the top easily enough, though, after a few rest stops and such. Looks like she learned her lesson after all. "So," you say when you take her hand, stepping onto the surface - a risk you know you shouldn't be taking without some drones, or at least a lot of friends around, but you think it'll be okay - "I'll see you again soon, right? And are you _shore_ you don't want me to send a drone back with you?"

"I'm certain, thank you!" She's already stripped off the apparatus - her hair is an absolute mess underneath where the strap had been, and her bodysuit is soggy, and and her red-tinged eyes are a bit tired and squinting under the harsher moonlight of the surface. She's still one of the prettiest trolls you've ever seen, though! "And yes, we'll definitely be back. Sollux and I are just going to go exploring, it'll be fine!"

"It'd better be,"you answer. "Anyone tries to catch you, well, they'll have to tangle with me!" And you give Aradia a big kiss, not caring if anyone's around to see - it's not like you can ever be _shore_ that no one's watching, right? And why should you be ashamed of having such a cute matesprit? "Tell your moirail not to be such a stranger, okay? He can come with you sometime if he wants to! There's plenty of room for company!"

"I'll tell him!" She gives you a big hug, then turns away. "See you soon!" 

You step back into the ocean and watch her as she runs away, and you know you shouldn't send a drone after her because you know she's not going to like it if you do - she can take care of herself and you know it! Still, you can't help but worry. You have big plans, but there just hasn't been enough time to change things the way you wish you could, not yet. What are you going to do if anything happens to her?

You watch her run off until she's out of sight, and you know for sure you won't feel better until she sends you a message from home. You never expected this relationship to be easy! You just wish you felt a little more confident about things sometimes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I made scuba gear for trolls. I imagine the whole concept gave Equius fits with how very class-irreverent it was. This one's pure slice-of-life; I keep wanting to write something in this vein where things happen, but it hasn't happened yet.


End file.
